


Backwards and Sideways

by Ladycat



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Episode Related, Episode: s04e13 Quarantine, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-11
Updated: 2014-02-11
Packaged: 2018-01-11 23:59:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1179499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ladycat/pseuds/Ladycat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John sits in his chair, computerized nine iron bobbing over Tiger Woods’ shoulder, and hates everyone and everything.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Backwards and Sideways

It’s only after Rodney scurries out of the room, brushed with a feathered, anxious red, that John really hears it. Rodney is going to _propose_. Not ‘get married’ the way just about everybody on a ’gate team has done a time or twelve, vows now exchanged with lazy smirks, reminders and accusations of cheating lobbed through hallways and the mess as frequently as the insults invariably attached to them. 

No, Rodney is going to _propose_. To a woman who has to steel herself before stepping through the ’gate—every time, and John doesn’t know why he knows that, but he does. A woman who shrinks like the flowers she tends whenever Rodney raises his voice, doe-eyes wide and confused with unconscious accusations written on every scattered freckle.

John sits in his chair, computerized nine iron bobbing over Tiger Woods’ shoulder, and hates everyone and everything. 

Rodney’s going to get married.

* * *

When the first alarm starts blaring, John thinks _this isn’t my fault! It’s Rodney’s stupid proposal, anyway!_ Except that’s a lie, a filthy, shame-laden lie because that isn’t the _first_ thing John thinks. 

The very first thing he thinks, sulky as a child with his lower-lip trembling, is _good._

But then John has to emulate Batman without the silly rubberized nipples, and mental cardboard boxes are the easiest thing for John to form, locking irrelevant thoughts and information away until he’s ready to figure out just what the hell _this_ one contains.

He really needs to invest in a mental sharpie.

Unfortunately, this particular flap doesn’t want to stay closed. It pops up at the strangest times, like staring at Teyal’s gauzy, voluminous dress with the slits that shows off her legs to a degree John can’t help but find a little shameful—she’s _pregnant_ , not a go-go dancer—and wondering what kind of dress Katie will want. Hearing Ronon’s voice rumble with a nearly-unfamiliar note of happiness, the memory of _If I have to have him_ superimposed over his actual words, Ronon tall and looming in fresh morning sunlight, while Rodney merely flicks lazy fingers as the two are wed for the third time that month.

Rodney won’t flick his fingers at Katie, probably.

John so busies himself with vainly trying to push the flap down that it’s nearly ten o’clock at night, all of a sudden, and all’s well, except for the way that Rodney seems to have utterly vanished.

Well, John supposes that’s understandable. He can still see Nancy’s smile, remember kissing her lipstick—not red, Nancy never wore crimson red, always browns that hid the dew-heavy petal pink of her lips—off as they celebrated that night. Rodney deserves what all those other weddings John’s shared with him have never offered: touches that whisper shivering intent, kisses that are not merely perfunctory, smiles not meant for other’s eyes.

He owes Rodney this, he thinks, and nearly convinces himself of it until he finds himself on the balcony, a bottle cold against his fingers with beer fuzzy and familiarly hoppy against his tongue.

And realizes he’s not alone.

“Gimme,” Rodney demands, plucking the bottle from lax fingers. He takes a swig, then a swallow. Then what can only be called a _glug_.

“I said I’d buy you a beer, not give you mine.”

“Yes, well, you’re the idiot who didn’t bring two.”

Questions crowd thick and furious behind John’s eyes. He blinks them away as fast as he can, mouth laced shut. This is Rodney’s space, a stage highlighted in too-hot lights. So he stays quiet and still, a steady bulwark for whatever Rodney wishes and tries not to count this as _one last time_.

The click of an opening box startles him back to reality. Moonlight breaks into dazzling rays as Rodney lifts box and ring higher into the air, showing off both. It’s quality made, a thick band of titanium with a single, square-cut diamond nestled next to acres of black velvet, the good kind that you only get at _real_ jewelers, not King’s or Jarred’s or—

“McKay. That’s a man’s ring.”

There’s no fountain of babble, no blushes of denial or furiously caustic tirades in how Rodney has been flummoxed this time. Instead, there is only quiet. And, “I know.”

“I’m sure you and Ronon will be very happy together,” he teases. The words come out wrong, though, cracking like a boy’s on _happy_ , the sound of them far, far away against the hurricane roaring in his ears. He feels like he’s falling, flexing his hands around a railing and leaving wet smears behind. Why does he feel like he’s falling?

“No. Not with Ronon.”

“I’m pretty sure Radek’s got a new boss to be smitten over?”

Carefully, so precise that this has to be planned down to the last heartbeat, Rodney leans forward and kisses John softly at the edge of his mouth. “I never did get around to asking her,” he says, voice heavy with razored fragments of forty years of too little life.

Time belongs to someone else.

“Keep it, okay?” Rodney says eventually. He sounds old. He sounds relieved and how can he be, with John standing there frozen, the imprint of Rodney’s mouth burning into his? 

How can he sound _free,_ coasting along a draft that warms even as it bears him onward. 

“It’s always been yours, John, and. And I want you to.”

The skyline is taunting him with pinks and purples by the time John finds it in him to curls his fingers around a velvet box, following footprints that glow with blue luminescence in his mind.

* * *

“I do believe it is my turn,” Teyla says, holding out a gallant hand towards Rodney while the Amaran priest looks on, curious.

“Nah,” John says, stepping into place. A crescent of titanium presses cold and familiar against his chest. “He’s already taken, but hey, does reaffirming count?”


End file.
